Beyond His Eyes
by Lyra Pendragon
Summary: Ever wanted to read those bits of the story that Rowling left out? Instead of just being told about these things, you want to read them, right? I finally decided to just write it myself Rating might go up! R&R plz! Book 5 spoilers!


BEYOND HIS EYES  
  
Disclaimer: None of this story, and none of its content, belongs to me....*sadness* It all belongs to J.K. Rowling...who somehow thought of Harry Potter thanks to fate...or her muse... (my muse disappeared a long time ago, that's why I'm writing this...fate forgot about me, I think...)  
  
Author's Note: *Whistles* I just recently thought of this, and I really wanted to write it...and it just occurred to me that I probably got the idea of the name from that song 'Behind Blue Eyes' or something by Limp Bizkit...because the story was called 'Behind His Eyes' before....  
  
---------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------(1)  
The man stared back at Dumbledore through the slits in his mask. His eyes were narrowed, the eyes of an animal that had been caught, but still longed to bite and scratch its captor.  
Albus watched, detached and emotionless, as the Death Eater turned on his heel and began out of the bar. The man beside Albus moved to stop the Death Eater, but Albus held up a hand and they let the Death Eater go.  
Now wasn't the time for fruitless pursuits. The Death Eater would have found a way to tell his master of this anyway, even if they had caught him. Stopping him from hearing half of the prophecy was the best luck that Albus could have gotten.  
As he thanked the pub owner for identifying the Death Eater, Dumbledore pondered about this. What he had to do, before anything else, was find this person–this boy–with the power to do what was Albus obviously couldn't.  
  
---------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------(2)  
James scowled, his lips curling downward as his eyes stormed with a rage that couldn't be expressed with words. Lily stood before him, strait- backed and fuming, her own green eyes showing plainly just how angry she was, although her voice had yet to raise above its normal level.  
Strange how they could fight over something so trivial, something that they hadn't fought over since they were in school together.  
Harry was sitting in his crib, looking frightened and lonely. His big green eyes looked wonderingly at both of his parents, and James felt an almost overwhelming need to go over, pick the boy up, and rock him to sleep in his arms. He would certainly wish to do something like that to calm his nerves.  
James took a long, deep breath, closed his eyes for a moment, and forced his anger back down. When he opened his eyes again, Lily was more visibly calm. Her eyes weren't burning with angry force, just smoldering. If he blew on her fire, James knew, he could easily bring the fire back up.  
"Look, Lily--"  
At that moment they heard the front door downstairs slam.  
In an instant the fight was forgotten. Lily began to speak, but James held up a hand. Every sense had just been turned up, alert, as he eased the door open and slid out into the hallway. James tiptoed silently to the landing, looked down the stairs and had to stifle a horrified yell.  
He scrambled silently back into the bedroom and looked back at Lily. His stomach was turning over and over in his terror. His face was white, frightened. His hands were shaking. On his face was the look of someone who knew his fate. When he spoke his voice was fearful, panicking, so unlike his usual cheerful garble that he didn't know it even was his own voice, "Lily, take Harry and go!" He was gasping the words out, barely comprehending what he was saying, "It's him! Go! Run! I'll hold him off--" He had only just decided what to do, for he immediately left the room, without even a second glance back at his family. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------(3)  
At this very moment, people meeting in secret all over the country were holding up their glasses and saying in hushed voices: "To Harry Potter–the boy who lived!"  
But Sirius wasn't among them. Neither were Remus or Peter, for that matter. Or at least he thought not. Remus, like himself, would be in mourning for James and Lily–and even for Harry who had been so young, yet so beloved to all of them. Peter, Sirius now knew, would be somewhere else, probably with a Death Eater or another. He was a traitor.  
Sirius hadn't even thought about the possibility that people all over the place might be thinking him the real traitor. The changing of Secret Keepers had been done discreetly. Nobody but James, Lily, Sirius, and Peter had known. Not even Dumbledore would know.  
But this wasn't what Sirius was thinking about.  
Next to the velvet armchair that Sirius was sitting in was a large glass of whiskey. It wasn't working as he'd wanted. Alcohol could wash away all the troubles of life, or so he'd thought before tonight. He'd drank more than his fair share of the putrid stuff tonight, but he was as sober as ever, if not more so.  
There was no way to get rid of the thought....  
Their house....  
...a smoldering pile of rubble that looked more like a trash heap than what had once been a fine little house...and he hadn't even found their bodies...everything was gone but the foundation...  
He had seen it. Sirius had seen it, and the sight had been worse than any real fire. It was like somebody had branded his heart...He'd left...  
There was nothing else for it...  
And then, clearly, Sirius remembered Peter's face when they'd switched Secret Keepers. He'd said that he would protect them with his life....  
Well....they were dead. He hadn't kept his word....  
The glass of whiskey was left on the table as Sirius leapt up with a new fire in his heart, the alcohol finally seeming to take affect as he swayed in his new fury, and he lumbered outside to his old flying motorcycle. He swung himself on and roared up into the air, the wind pushing back his hair as he did so.  
....A flash of memory...He and James and fixed up the motorcycle together...  
......  
A half hour later and Sirius was flying over their house, torturing himself by looking at it, on his way to Peter's own house which was close by, and there–in the distance on the road he saw a tall figure with a wild dark beard....  
Sirius flew toward the half-giant and stopped before him.  
"Hagrid..." Sirius said, looking up at the man. He looked tired and disheveled, and he was carrying a small bundle in the crook of his arm.  
Hagrid smiled down at him, and Sirius tried valiantly to do the same for him, but couldn't manage a smile, only a short painful grimace.  
"And how are ye, Sirius?" Hagrid asked gently, still cradling whatever he had in his bundle of blankets....or was that all it was...?  
Sirius ignored the question. Hagrid new perfectly well "how he was". Instead he said, "What have you got, Hagrid?" Nodded at the bundle.  
Hagrid suddenly looked frightened, looked around as if trying to see if anyone was there to see, and hugged the bundle closer before he leaned down a bit to let Sirius see–  
"Why it's Harry!" Sirius gasped. "But how? And what's this scar? I thought they were all--"  
"Don't know or care how it happened, Sirius, I'm just happy that he's okay...even if..." Hagrid looked uncomfortable. He didn't need to finish the sentence...Even if James and Lily are dead, at least Harry's okay... "I'm sorry, Sirius." Hagrid said huskily, as if on the verge of tears, and he patted Sirius on the back, nearly pitching the man forward.  
"So he's okay..." Sirius muttered, and even through all his despair, a sudden light seemed to turn on in his heart, "Hagrid, I'm his godfather. Please–let me take him--"  
But even as he held out his arms for the child, before he was even finished speaking, Hagrid was shaking his head, holding the baby closer by the second, "I'm on Dumbledore's orders, Sirius. Harry's goin' to his aunt."  
"What aunt?" Sirius said, loudly and angrily now, "He doesn't have an aunt! James is an only child--"  
"He's ter go to Lily's sister." Hagrid interrupted swiftly.  
Sirius's arms dropped to their sides as if he were a rag doll. "But she's a Muggle." He said quietly, suddenly enraged again. Who cared what Dumbledore said! James had foretold Sirius as Harry's godfather! He should take care of the boy, not some hateful Muggles who wouldn't tell a wand from an ordinary stick if their life depended on it, who hated James and Lily in the first place!  
It took a moment for Sirius to master his anger. He breathed deeply and looked back up at Hagrid...  
He remembered what he had come out of his solitude to do...Peter–  
–had framed him.  
Now Sirius remembered...  
He looked at Harry....Harry would grow up thinking that he, Sirius, had been the cause of James and Lily's death. Peter was free. It seemed to Sirius as if a dark cloud was enveloping his heart...  
He almost choked on his next words: "Hagrid. Can I at least hold Harry one last time before you take him away...?"  
Obviously Hagrid didn't like that phrase, "take him away," but clenched his teeth and gave Harry over.  
The boy had been asleep at the beginning of their talk, but was now wide awake, looking at Sirius with his large green eyes. Harry smiled a slight, baby smile, but Sirius could tell that the boy meant to smile, and hugged him, saying, "Someday you can live with me, little Harry..."  
Then he handed Harry back to Hagrid. Hagrid turned to leave.  
"Wait." Sirius said, and Hagrid turned back to him, "Take my motorcycle." Sirius said.  
"Why?" Hagrid said, suspiciously. Sirius had to give him credit. Even if students at Hogwarts did think the man all brawn and no brain, he still had something of a mind to make up to all of that matter.  
"I won't need it any more." Sirius said, not giving any more of an explanation than that.  
Sirius's persuasion skills were well off, he thought with a little arrogance while he watched Hagrid fly away. He turned around and decided to go find Peter.  
  
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Petunia had woken up, years ago, to find her nephew on her front doorstep. It was obscene. Who ever heard of an abandoned child being left on a doorstep! But that was where he had been when she'd opened the door that morning. She could still remember it clearly. There he'd been in a little bundle of blankets, a horrible gnashing scar whipped across his little baby forehead, and there she'd been with yesterday's milk jars–the boy was lucky that she hadn't dropped them right on top of him!  
Now, having read that letter from....whatever his name was....having decided to take him in (with Vernon's consent)...having had him in the house for four years...she was finally beginning to get used to him. He was the strangest child. Quiet and lonely. And he'd never given up that lost puppy look. Compared to her own child (and this was a great compliment that she was admitting to herself) he was a good boy. She even liked him a little bit. He reminded her of Lily–Lily before she'd gone off to that school and gotten ten times more beautiful and loved than Petunia herself and become so damned conceited...  
She wondered if Harry would become conceited like Lily had, how much she'd changed...  
But she shouldn't be thinking about this. Her own son was chattering about a toy that he wanted, that everyone else had in the preschool apparently, while she made him breakfast. Never would she say a thing against her son's physic, but she couldn't ignore the double chin that the child was already getting, while her only nephew sat quietly waiting for his own breakfast, slight as a twig.  
  
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They were picking for teams. Dudley was captain against another brawny boy of about his own age. Before Dudley was a line of students. It was his turn to pick.  
His eyes passed over them all, immediately looking for the biggest boy there–  
–and for a split second his eyes passed over his cousin....  
He, Dudley, had been the first one to set up the boundaries for who could be picked, and who couldn't be picked. It was always the biggest, the tallest–and if there were girls–the prettiest ones first. It didn't matter how good a player you were. It would never matter in Harry's case. Harry would always be the last picked, and for a moment the nine-year-old Dudley felt sorry for doing that to his cousin–  
–But then the thought disappeared, as they could so easily do with nine-year-olds, and he chose the next biggest boy...  
  
---------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------(6)  
Liz stared through cereal boxes and things at the boy who was walking only an isle next to the one she was in. His hair was black and very untidy. He was short and a bit too thin for her liking. In fact, she didn't exactly like his appearance at all. What had caught her eye was the scar on his forehead.  
She'd heard stories about this boy–Harry Potter (or at least she thought it was him). Most people had never even seen him. Liz had only ever met one person who'd even seen Harry Potter.  
He wasn't exactly what one would have expected of a hero. He didn't look strong, or all that remarkable. He didn't talk much. All that she'd even heard him say were the words, "Yes, Aunt Petunia." A few times to a tall, horse-faced woman who kept ordering him around. There was another boy with them, a pudgy blonde boy who looked about the same age as Harry Potter. The woman had yet to say a brisk word to him. Liz had an overwhelming feeling of bitterness now, as she watched Harry Potter picking out a can of tomatoes...  
Ten minutes later she was on a bus, heading back to her own home with her groceries. She saw Harry Potter walking behind the woman and the blonde boy outside on the sidewalk through her window. He was looking around at anything but the people in front of him, and Liz waved at him from the bus, hoping to catch his eye–  
–She did, and Harry, looking amazed, but somehow more cheerful, waved back.  
  
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Petunia stared at the letter in her hands.  
She had thought–maybe even hoped–that it would be the one for Harry. She knew that one for him would come sooner or later.  
But it hadn't been Harry's letter. He wasn't old enough yet. Dudley was a few months older. The letter–exactly the same as Lily's had been–was addressed to Dudley Dursley.  
THIS was unbelievable. Dudley? HER Dudley?? Her little baby who had been raised against any magic upbringing all his life? How...how could this....  
Petunia hadn't shown the letter to anyone else in the household. Lucky for her she'd been the one to get the mail this morning. Lucky for her Vernon hadn't. She winced at the memory of his blows on her soft skin. He wouldn't have taken this lightly.  
Petunia dropped the letter in the trash bin, scowling slightly. No son of hers would ever go to that school.  
There had been another letter in the envelope. It was a permission slip. It was asking her permission, as a Muggle-born wizard's parent, to let Dudley go to the school.  
Her hand barely hesitated before she checked the 'no' box, and signed the letter–  
–the letter immediately disappeared, and Petunia, eyes wide with shock, felt the familiar fear of something that she never would fully understand–  
–Then, in a second, Petunia's mind was wiped of the knowledge of such a letter. If she looked in the trash bin now, all she would find would be a few Mr. Fudgy Bar wrappers.... 


End file.
